


Alt.

by brightmoonprincess



Category: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, F/F, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Past Abuse, References to Drugs, Self-Harm, Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-17
Updated: 2019-06-17
Packaged: 2020-05-13 10:04:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,553
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19248970
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brightmoonprincess/pseuds/brightmoonprincess
Summary: Cathy hates her own name, get into bar fights, and always always always feels like something isn’t right.[catradora, modern soulmate au]





	Alt.

The name Catrina never felt quite right to her. Too many syllables, too princessy. When the receptionist of the emergency room calls out her full name, it always takes her a few extra seconds to notice. When regrettable lovers try to intimately whisper it in her ear, there’s no better way to ruin the mood. The nickname "Cat" doesn’t roll off the her tongue the right way, too curt and sharp, and she also has this weird thing with cats that she doesn’t want to get into right now. "Cathy" still doesn’t feel perfect...

But it feels close enough, so she sticks with it.

Cathy, as she’s gone by for nearly her entire lifetime, counts the dense stack of dollar bills, the pad of her thumb sliding each note along expertly. When she reaches the last bill, she frowns and narrows her heterochromatic eyes at the underling sitting across from her.

 _It’s missing a grand._ She tells him this.

 _What? Count again._ He spits back at her with unimpressive gall.

She smiles leeringly, her darkly painted lips a tug away from a snarl. _Do you really think I’m an idiot?_

Cathy always keeps her nails coated in black and filed to a sharp point. They drum against her kitchen table, once, twice, tapping slowly. Her hand tenses and moves backwards, and her nails scratch against the wooden surface. They screech as they hollow out rigid grooves in their path, and she relishes the rough sound.

_Either take the rest out, or there’s a high chance you won’t wake up tomorrow morning. Don’t be an dumbass-- do you really want to take that risk?_

It isn’t a bluff, and they both know that. Sure, she could do it herself and put a bullet through his head right now, but she didn’t climb her way up the cartel hierarchy to be doing run-of-the-mill hitman jobs, thank-you-very-much. She did it for power, for respect, for control. She did it to reign over entire cities, to profit more than she could have ever imagined, to make people cower in her presence-- like this guy is doing now.

The dealer pretends to search through his pockets for a few moments, and once he’s "found" the rest of the money, he hands it over to her with a mumbled apology.

_Great. Now, get out. And don’t even think about trying that shit again._

When he finally leaves, Cathy takes to her balcony and has a desperately-needed cigarette.

She inhales the smoke deeply and holds the fiery ache in her lungs for as long as her body can handle. As she steadily exhales, she watches as the spiraling smoke dances and dissolves into the crisp night air.

She leans against the railing, with her arms lazily dangling over, and she twirls the cigarette between her fingers. It weaves in between each knuckle, then it slips over her pinky and ends up falling several stories down. Cathy doesn’t care to go put it out.

 _Let this entire fucking city burn to the ground_ , for all she’s concerned.

It’s all concrete out there, and nothing feels real, anyways. The buildings that make up the skyline might as well be fake, just flat shapes that were cut out of children's construction paper and pasted onto the sky. Sometimes people feel that way, too, just moving silhouettes, fake fake **fake fake fake**.

Ugh. Dissociation, crazy, right? Cathy groans and rests her forehead against the damp metal railing.

The cigarettes aren’t cutting it. Cathy decides that she needs a drink.

━━━━━━━━━━ ✖ ✖ ✖ ━━━━━━━━━━

Cathy doesn’t normally drink at bars. She’s passed the days of participating in the nightlife scene-- and even in those days, she wasn’t there for fun. It was all business. A sorority girl in Club Cosmopolitan on her twenty-fourth birthday was willing to pay so much more for a gram than the average run-of-the-mill addict, and the seedy dive bars were stocked full of buyers who were getting tired of numbing themselves with cheap beer. But nowadays, she has others doing the actual dealing for her.

That being said, she _does_ normally drink at home. There’s nothing like an alcohol-induced coma to get some deep, dreamless sleep.

Ugh, well, now that she’s had a few drinks... She supposes that she can let herself talk about her bizarre, vivid dreams.

In her dreams-- in Every. Single. Goddamn. Dream.-- she has cat ears and a tail. They’re soft and fuzzy, and she can control them both so naturally. She has no idea why her dream-self is a fucking furry. There’s no way in hell she’s going to let herself get psychoanalyzed, with all the baggage she has locked away. She’s screwed up; why waste money on letting someone else tell her what she already knows?

So here she is instead, avoiding anime cat-girl art on the internet at all costs and pretending to be allergic to her neighbor’s pets.  As far as Cathy and anyone else is concerned, she hates cats.

It’s self projection, she knows.

Cathy sips at the bourbon in her stout glass. It warms and reminds her of cinnamon and campfires, and she likes the way the amber liquid scorches her throat. She doesn’t quite know why she’s here, rather than in her apartment. She isn’t meeting any of her informants here. She doesn’t want to socialize. She hates the pop-country music that they play.

A change of scenery, maybe. As expensive and shiny as her apartment is, it’s stuffy. It never really felt like home.

Angie's Bar is decent place to people-watch, hosting some interesting local characters. The Weird AF Grandma huddles in the corner, whispering stories rumors of eight foot tall women and flying horses. The Neighbor Asshole is in the center of the room and brazenly challenging the entire place to an arm wrestling match, which he happens to always do when Sean Hawkins is gone on a fishing trip. He only acts tough when he thinks he’s the strongest person in the room, like most insecure men do. He’s offering to buy a drink to anyone that can beat him.

"Sure, I’ll take you up on that."

And just like that-- every hair on Cathy’s body stands straight up.

It’s as if a bolt of lighting strikes against her backbone. It sends chills of static over her skin, electrifies every pathway of her brain. Her eardrums feel the pressure of thunder pounding against them.

The voice is too familiar. Despite however many years have passed, (eleven years, she hates to remember,) she recognizes it instantly. And, ok, maybe the voice has haunted a dream or two. The tone of the voice hasn’t changed much at all. It’s steady, confident, melodic-- unlike Cathy’s voice, which is almost antagonistically raspy and low.

Hearing it again feels like hearing sound for the first time.

Cathy doesn’t turn around. Every muscle is frozen in shock, the electricity still bouncing through her fuzzy brain. She isn’t even sure if she’s still breathing.

The conversation continues behind her. She hears a snicker.

_You don’t have to act all tough to get my attention, sweetheart. I’ll just buy you one._

"Oh yeah? Are you that scared of losing to a woman?"

Cathy takes a deep breath to calm her now rapidly beating heart. She wonders if turning around would be a mistake.

━━━━━━━━━━ ✖ ✖ ✖ ━━━━━━━━━━

Cathy’s memories of her childhood are foggy at best-- especially now, after all of the substance abuse from her earlier dealing days. When she tries to recall an event, it is never pulled out of her mind quite clearly, and it ends up feeling more like a sequence of low-quality, chopped-up video clips. What she does remember in vivid detail, or rather who she always remembers, is her childhood best friend, Adora.

The orphanage that the two girls grew up in, an older Cathy eventually realizes, was some sort of sketchy Catholic-esque cult and illegal adoption agency which either bought or kidnapped babies, then continued to abuse and manipulate them.

Again, _lots_ of baggage.

Cathy and Adora lived in the orphanage since they were infants, and until they left, it was all that they had even known. From the first day they met, they were inseparable. They protected each other from bullies, they shared every secret, and they promised to always have each other’s backs.

Once or twice a month, potential adoptive parents would visit the orphanage. Sometimes a young barren couple, sometimes a creepy older man. What they had in common was that they all looked wealthy, and they were almost always interested in Adora.

Not Cathy, never Cathy. Pretty blonde girls with blue eyes and a peppy personalities are the most sought after orphans, after all. With her dark features and arguably even darker personality, what could a young Catrina even expect?

 _She’s already being picked up next week,_ Sister Wendy would always claim when someone would inquire about adopting the charming blonde child, no matter how high the offer, leaving a confused and disheartened Adora. Cathy never understood why Sister Wendy did this, but she was always secretly happy when she found out that Adora was sticking around.

The older that the girls grew, the less people were interested in adopting Adora. Teenagers were especially difficult to find homes for, even the ones as kind and intelligent and athletic and irritatingly _perfect_ as Adora. Once the offers had stopped completely, after their limbs grew and their innocence faded, Cathy was sure that she and Adora would be together forever. So stupid and naive, blah blah blah.

They tried kissing when they were fourteen, a mess of uncertain and accidental touches. Some awkward laughs and confused feelings and months later, they were sneaking into each other’s beds every night. Despite everything about their situation-- to Cathy, it was perfect. They clung onto each other for survival, like warm bodies huddled together in a blizzard. Their love bloomed like flowers sprouting in between cracks in a concrete sidewalk, something delicate, innocent, a spark of hope in a pit of despair.

Then, inevitably, because why would anything actually good ever happen in Cathy’s life-- Adora’s real family finally tracked her down. They were furious, but they were likely given enough money to keep quiet about the situation. No one’s morals are so high that they aren’t willing to accept a generous bribe, which that Cathy knows too well these days. Sister Wendy threw a fit, but there was nothing she could do. Cathy never cried so much in her life, and she hasn’t cried so much since then.

At first, Cathy and Adora kept in touch. It wasn’t the same. Apparently Adora’s family is a Big Fucking Deal. Cathy couldn’t help but to be jealous and bitter, in addition to feeling abandoned. When Adora finally visited, Cathy screamed at her best friend to _fuck off and never talk to me again_.

Shortly afterwards, Cathy left the orphanage. As it turns out, the local black market covers a wide breadth of services, and moving from illegal adoptions to drug cartels is an easy transition if you know the right people. A little networking here and there, and Cathy landed her starting gig as a dealer. Cathy never tried to contact Adora, and she hasn’t since.

All of it feels like a lifetime ago, like a dream.

Except, well, here she was again.

━━━━━━━━━━ ✖ ✖ ✖ ━━━━━━━━━━

Cathy finally turns around in the barstool and stares at the girl sitting at a nearby table. Adora’s back is facing her, but even so, Cathy recognizes her outline without any doubt.

She is still in the middle of her strongman competition, grunting as her impressively large biceps strain to overcome her opponent’s.

Adora wins; of course she does. The best at everything, as always.

There’s some scattered applause, and Adora stands up, her hands resting triumphantly on her hips. What a showoff. "Thanks for the drink! I’ll put it on your tab."

Cathy takes a deep breath. This is fine. Everything is fine. She isn’t going to freak out or cry or anything else embarrassing. She can handle this. She leans back against the edge of the bar, rests her elbows up onto it, and crosses her legs. All of it is very, very casual.

Adora turns around and immediately locks eyes with Cathy, and something clicks into place.

Cathy isn’t sure what it is, exactly, but the world feels like it’s been jolted back into focus. As bleak and dimly lit as the bar is, all of the colors seem brighter, somehow. The neon decorations on the walls glowly more vibrantly. The shabby furniture looks like it gained another dimension. The intensity of Adora’s blue eyes is almost palpable. Another chill runs through Cathy’s body, but she tries not to visibly react.

The recognition hits Adora immediately. Her piercing, steely eyes widen, and her jaw nearly hits the floor. Cathy wonders if she looked just as ridiculous a moment ago.

"Hey, Adora." Cathy puts on her expression like a mask, smirking effortlessly, her nonchalant attitude on auto-pilot. "Come here often?"

Adora doesn’t even respond for a few seconds, only staring back at her. "Is… is that really you?"

Cathy stands up and slides her hands into her pockets. She takes a few steps towards Adora, eyeing her from head to toe. "Guess it is. Miss me?"

Once the initial shock begins to fade away, Adora grins widely at her old friend. "Of course I did!" she exclaims as she sweeps Cathy into a tight hug.

Cathy blinks in surprise, her arms awkwardly dangling at her sides.

Oh. She isn’t sure how to react.

Adora doesn’t hold onto grudges. She doesn’t let the resentment fester like an infected wound, picking at its scabs until it grows into hatred. That’s just Cathy. Right.

"I, uh…" Cathy hesitates. The touch is familiar. Nostalgic. Comforting. Heart-breaking. Er. Complicated.

She’s thought a lot about how she would react if she ever ran into Adora again. She had entire speeches planned, calling the oh-so-perfect princess out on her goody-two-shoes hypocrisy, reminding her of all the now-broken promises they made.

In the moment, Cathy forgets all of it.

Her arms cautiously wrap around Adora’s body as well, and she hugs her back. "Yeah. Back at you."

When they release from the hug, Adora is still beaming with excitement. "I can’t believe you’re really... Oh! I just won a free drink! Let me get something for you before we start catching up! What do you like?"

Yikes. Cathy internally grimaces. This has Emotional Breakdown written all over it, and she isn’t ready to deal with all of that. She panics, calmly. "Thanks, but I’ll pass. I actually need to go get going. I’ll see you around, Adora."

"What? Cathy, please, wait." Without hesitation, Adora grabs her hand.

When people usually touch Cathy, she immediately recoils (and throws a punch or two, depending on where they grab.) But her body doesn’t automatically flinch from Adora’s hand. The comfort surprises even Cathy. It’s been a while since she’s been around this kind of casual touch. Cathy can only look at the puppy-eyed look that Adora is giving her for a few seconds until she's forced to glance away. The warmth in her cheeks tells her that keeping her composure is going to be harder than she thought.

"I want to know how you’ve been doing," Adora pleads.

Cathy isn’t sure what to say after that. How is she doing? Fantastic. Living her best life. More successful than anyone ever thought she would be. Not living every day feeling like something is missing from her life. Not feeling like the trenches of her mind are constantly a blazing dumpster fire. Not worried that the universe itself could crumble at any moment.

She still doesn’t know what to say, so she turns around and sits back down at the bar.

"Fine, fine. We can do this whole dramatic reunion thing. Just get something strong," Cathy agrees with a lazy hand wave.

Adora smiles and joins her.

━━━━━━━━━━ ✖ ✖ ✖ ━━━━━━━━━━

For not having seen each other in over a decade, their conversation flows naturally. Mostly, they reminisce.

_Remember the ghost stories we used to scare each other with? The Weeping Princess?_

_Fuck you, I couldn’t sleep for a week after that one!_

_What do you think Octavia is up to these days?_

_Still bullying children to hide her insecurities, probably._

_I still can’t believe we never got caught for stealing that car. Or that you talked me into it._

_Excuse me? That was definitely you!_

_I did it all to try and cheer you up! You were the one who drove it into that tree._

_… Debatable._

Cathy almost forgot how silly Adora becomes when she’s had a couple of drinks. She calls the bartender _the best person ever,_ giggling like she’s heard the funniest joke ever told. At one point, she literally does a spit-take of her cocktail, spraying pineapple flavored vodka across the bartop. Cathy is living for every moment of it, and she doesn’t remember the last time she laughed this much.

When the bar’s pop-country playlist runs out of songs, a more upbeat 80s pop song overtakes the speakers. Adora says, like the most basic of white drunk girls, "I love this song! Dance with meeeeee."

Cathy lets out a groan, but despite herself, she obliges, letting Adora take her hand and drag her away.

There isn’t an actual dance floor; there’s only a narrow, table-less clearing where people tend to loiter when the place gets too crowded. Except it’s not crowded at all, with only a handful of patrons aside from themselves. So they already look ridiculous.

Cathy didn’t think that Adora was too drunk to keep her balance, but the taller blonde ends up leaning her weight onto her, arm wrapped around Cathy’s shoulder, standing too close. The two lock hands as they bounce back and forth to the bubbly beat.

Cathy spins Adora around, and she ends in the move in a dramatic dip. Adora giggles all the while, her bright laughter filling the room. It’s silly and stupid. Cathy knows they must look like idiots to everyone else at the bar, but she might admit that she’s having fun.

She pulls Adora back up-- then, briefly, there is a moment when Adora’s eyes flicker down to Cathy’s eyes to her lips.

Cathy notices.

She gives Adora a mischievous smile, and she places a hand on her forearm.

"You look good, by the way," she compliments.

Adora grins, oblivious. "Thank you! You look great, too."

Cathy’s hand travels up her arm, until her fingers brush against her neck, and she tucks a stray strand of hair behind Adora’s ear.

"Want to just catch up at my place? Like old times," Cathy suggests.

To get the point across, both of her hands move to her center of Adora’s back, and she yanks Adora closer, leaving no space between their bodies. She leans in and brushes her lips against Adora’s jaw, the touch gossamer-light.

Cathy purrs in her ear, "If you know what I mean."

When she leans back, Adora’s cheeks are flushed. The blonde blinks in surprise, but once she gets over the initial fluster, she smiles brightly and fucking _winks_ back at Cathy, like a huge sexy dork.

"Riiight, like old times."

━━━━━━━━━━ ✖ ✖ ✖ ━━━━━━━━━━

It’s nothing like old times.

They’ve barely made it through the door before Cathy has Adora’s shoulders pinned against the foyer wall, pressing greedy and impatient kisses against her neck. She imagines the dark cupid-bow-shaped marks she might make there, contrasting against Adora’s lighter skin, if only her lipstick hadn’t tragically dried out. She decides she can settle for territorial love-bites instead.

Her leg is placed in between Adora’s, her thigh high enough to tease. She makes sure to shift her body with her movements, and their hips press and anxiously against one another’s, eager for some kind of friction.

Adora, once she’s grown impatient of the teasing, hoists Cathy up easily, as if she weighs nothing. They abruptly switch places, with Cathy’s back against the plaster. She wraps her legs around Adora’s waist, making sure to keep her as close as possible, or to keep some sort of control. Their power struggle persists, like it always has, even like this.

Cathy hands firmly grasp Adora’s face, while Adora’s grip Cathy’s butt, holding up her weight. Their lips crash together.

The kiss is passionate and desperate, full of heat and heart. But there’s a sadness there. It’s bittersweet. Painful. Adora’s ragged breaths makes its way straight to Cathy’s chest, unravelling the heartstrings it finds there, weaving them into Cathy’s spinal cord instead and pulling tightly. It aches.

The two kiss until they’re quite literally breathless, not breaking away until they’re both panting. They rest their foreheads against each other’s, and Adora gingerly slides Cathy back down to the ground.

Cathy takes Adora’s hand and leads her to the bedroom, both of them dizzy with intoxication and desire.

They help tug each other’s clothes off, afterwhich Adora finally hesitates and says, "Er, Cathy, by the way… Your nails…"

Cathy laughs. She playfully drags a finger down Adora’s chest, snaking a line in between her breasts, and smirks as she says, "Don’t worry; I have other methods."

She kisses Adora again, with more bite, sharp teeth against soft velvet. Adora moans into her mouth, and it feels like the breath of life being blown into her body, reviving her. Cathy walks forward, forcing Adora to move backwards, until she pushes Adora’s shoulders downwards, getting her to sit on the edge of the bed.

Cathy lowers herself onto her knees, and she licks along Adora’s inner thigh-- although instead of the sensual moans she expects, she hears Adora let out a stifled laugh.

Cathy frowns and looks up at her. "What’s funny?"

"Sorry, I was just wondering-- are you still into the cat roleplay thing?"

" _Oh my god shut_ _up._ "

Adora’s second laugh gets cut off by her own soft gasp as Cathy’s mouth locks itself between her legs. Cathy makes confident strokes around Adora’s clit, along her folds, slides her tongue inside of her. Throughout it all, Adora is a jumbled moaning disheveled wreck, Cathy soaks in the noises like fuel, wanting to draw out many sighs and moans as she can, lapping up her tastes like a goddamn dehydrated animal.

Adora’s breathing gets heavier as the pressure builds, the heat and pleasure condensing inside of her, and Cathy can feel her thighs clenching against her head. At her peak, Adora lets out a noiseless gasp, and her entire body trembles as the wave of euphoria fills her veins with transcendental warmth, like a glowing sun bursting in her gut.

Once the aftershocks fade away, she cups Cathy’s jaw and guides her back up for a sweet kiss, her moist lips silky and supple. Cathy joins her on the bed, and Adora climbs on top of her.

There, Adora takes full advantage of her blunt fingernails. Her mouth locks onto Cathy’s nipple while her hands slides itself between her legs, fingers slipping inside her, bent knuckles thrusting shallowly.

Cathy’s back arches and she bites down on her own lip to keep from crying out, her hips pushing back against Adora’s hand. Her body feels like it's on fire, every inch of skin more sensitive than it's ever felt. She squirms and grabs at her bedsheets, and she whimpers when Adora removes her fingers, too soon. 

Before she has any time to cool down, however, Adora kisses up Cathy’s chest, nibbles on her neck and whispers _sit on my face_.

They roll over once more, and Cathy places her knees on either side of Adora's head. Once she's settled, Adora circles her arms around Cathy's thighs and pulls her down onto her lips.

Cathy usually isn’t this vocal, all pleasured yelps and throaty groans while she claws at the wooden headboard. She feels like a complete mess and normally hates not being in control, but it’s _Adora_ and she can’t believe it’s really her and she can hardly comprehend that any of this is really happening and it seems too good to be true and if everything didn’t feel so real and sensitive and raw she would swear it’s a dream but even if it is a dream fuck it _fuck reality_ all she cares about is the girl right now the girl she’s never forgotten about the girl who brings color into her life and she can think about in this moment is _"Adora," she breathes out, desperately,_ and Adora’s lips and Adora’s voice and Adora’s tongue and _oh_ ** _fuck_** .

━━━━━━━━━━ ✖ ✖ ✖ ━━━━━━━━━━

The dawnlight light pours in through the wall-length windows. Cathy has her head resting against Adora’s shoulder, their still-bare legs overlapping one another’s. They’re awake, and Adora runs fingers through Cathy's hair.

"I didn’t ask-- what do you do, exactly?" Adora questions. Now that she has opportunity to soberly look at Cathy’s apartment, with its towering ceilings and lavish furniture, she realizes that it’s definitely the home of an affluent person.

"You mean my job?" Cathy yawns.

Cathy considers lying. But what’s the point in that?

She rolls over the other side of the bed, sits up, and stretches her arms.

"I run a drug cartel," Cathy answers, bluntly.

"Haha, good one, Cathy!" Adora laughs, giving her a playful slap on the shoulder. When Cathy doesn’t immediately laugh along with her, she pauses. She props herself up onto her elbows, and stares incredulously at the girl lounging lazily beside her. "Wait, for real?"

Cathy shrugs in response. "Haven’t seen the dark side of the city in a long time, hm?"

"I guess not..." Adora murmurs. "Do you... know about my job?"

Cathy can’t help but to let out a scoff. "You kidding me? I couldn’t avoid you if I tried."

It’s not even an exaggeration. An online search for "Grayskull" will provide anyone with millions of links, each containing information her Adora’s big-shot family.

They’re the founders of what is undoubtedly one of the most powerful technology companies in the world: First One’s Tech. They’ve made game-changing advanced in environmental technology, holographic messaging, even space travel. They’re trying to connect the world, to make it a better place, or something like that.

The darling of it all? Adora, of course. She has the perfect tragic backstory, the honorable ethics, the lawful moral code, the friendly face. The family tries to keep as low a profile as possible, but when you’re the Savior of the World or whatever, that’s not exactly easy to do. Now that she’s thinking more about it, Cathy is surprised that no one at the bar recognized her, even without a business suit on.

The Grayskulls have also publicly denounced all crime in the city. They regularly donate thousands of dollars to the police force, as well as to various programs dedicated to eradicating the local drug issues. So there’s that.

Adora says, quietly, "We went down very different paths, didn’t we?"

"Talk about an understatement."

"Does it make you think differently of me?"

"Don’t worry. I still have the same unfavorable opinion of you that I’ve always had, no matter how big and important you get."

Adora cracks a smile. "Are still pretending that you don’t like me?"

"I don’t like you," Cathy reaffirms. After she says it, however, she pressed her lips to Adora's, peppering her with quick kisses.

They tumble around Cathy’s bed for a bit as they kiss and tangle themselves into the silky white bed sheets. Then they end up laying on their sides, facing each other. Adora hold Cathy’s face in her hand.

The look in her eyes makes Cathy’s heart soar and ache at the same time. It makes her feel like she’s wanted. Like she’s beautiful. Like she’s precious.

Before she can subdue it, the voice in the back of her head whispers to her, bitter, begrudging, believable, _but you’re worthless. She left for a reason._

"I just wanted to say. Meeting you again like this…" Adora starts to say.

Cathy sucks in a breath.

"It honestly feels like fate."

Her heart clenches. It’s so fucking romantic, isn’t it?  It’s a happy ending that’s too perfect to be real. The stars finally aligned. Her best friend, her first love. She finally found her way into Cathy’s arms again.

After she left in the first fucking place.

And sure, whatever, stuff happens. But when she walked out the door, Adora took a knife to her best friend’s back, carved her name into her spine like a cursed tattoo. Someone could rip out Cathy’s fingernails one by one, and it would still hurt less than the pain Adora left her with. Why the fuck does she think that she can waltz into Cathy’s life like she didn’t break her into pieces?

Cathy doesn’t want to hear any of this soulmate bullshit. _Screw. This._

Cathy sits up again and swings her legs over the edge of the bed, her back to Adora. The bedsheet falls away from her shoulders, her body naked, vulnerable, bare.

"Get out," Cathy says calmly.

Adora sits up as well. "Wait... what?"

"I said, get the **_fuck_ **out!" Cathy screams.

Cathy doesn’t turn around to see what Adora’s reaction is. She probably looks hurt. Maybe even angry. _Good_.

She doesn’t hear anything for a few moments, until Adora begins to move. Cathy is silent as she listens to the sounds of Adora climbing out of the bed, pulling her clothes back on, walking over to the door. She doesn’t move her head until the door shuts beside Adora. And then she immediately hates herself.

 _It would never work out_ , she tells herself. They might as well be in two completely different worlds. Adora has an image to uphold. Being with Cathy would ruin all of that, a dark stain on the picture-perfect painting of Adora’s life.

She didn’t think about it too hard when she first saw Adora, too distracted at running into Adora again to realize the complications that a relationship with her-- even a friendship--  would bring. Cathy couldn’t be dragged into the spotlight and have paparazzi at her doorstep. That’s a one-way ticket to a lifetime in jail. Eventually, she would be caught, or blackmailed, or worse. Not to mention, Adora’s entire life would be ruined by a scandal like that.

Cathy rolls back onto her bed and screams, her body folding over, and she holds herself, digging her nails into her arms. She claws at herself, at her pillows, at anything she can get her hands on.

They both know it isn’t meant to be. There’s no such thing as fate, no such thing as soulmates. There’s only a shitty life and heartbreak and back-stabbing. That’s all their relationship would be, just pain and regret and betrayal. Why bother dragging it out?

Fuck everything.

━━━━━━━━━━ ✖ ✖ ✖ ━━━━━━━━━━

After a long shower session and a few hours of wallowing in self-loathing, Cathy is finally able to think about the situation more rationally.

It’s a perfectly normal situation, after all. Just having a one night stand with your childhood best friend who you haven’t seen for years, who you kicked out of your apartment because you have the emotional maturity of a toddler, who you never might never see again until her ghost haunts you in the next fucking dream. A typical textbook scenario, right?

It’s moments like these where she thinks, ok, maybe a therapist would be helpful. Someone to give her advice, at least. Someone to tell her what to do and show her how to fix things. That would be worth paying for.

Speaking of paying for stuff-- Cathy comes to the realization that she never closed her tab last night, which means her credit card is being held hostage at the bar. Great.

It’s late afternoon, and the bar probably just opened. There’s no way that Adora would be there this early, Cathy thinks. And after Cathy’s casual breakdown yesterday, she’s more likely avoiding that place at all costs. Cathy would be surprised to see her ever again.

So when she walks into bar and sees Adora there, she’s surprised.

She’s the only patron at the bar. Of course she is. It’s a Sunday, the place literally opened fifteen minutes ago, and it’s not even 4pm. Her body is slumped over, and her head is resting on top of the bar.

The bartender glances at Cathy as she walks in, down at Adora, and back again. _Really broke her heart, didn’t you?_

Cathy doesn’t bother responding to that. Actually, it’s the other way around, nosy bartender. Sort of. It’s complicated, and she doesn’t want to explain it to him.

She walks over to Adora, lets out a sigh, and shakes her shoulder lightly. "Uh, hey Adora. Are you ok?"

"I _told_ yuh I’m fi--" Adora beings to say. She sits up and turns her head, her eyes taking a moment to blink back into focus. "Cathy cat, you came bahck!"

Well. She’s incredibly drunk. She must have started drinking before she even came here.

Cathy asks, "Adora, are you an alcoholic?"

"Whuht? Me? Nooo waaay," she replies, aghast.

"Hey, I’m all about binge drinking, so no judgement here. But don’t you have a reputation or something?"

"Pleeeeeeease don’t remind meeeeeeeee. It’s so haaaaaaaaard keepin up with everythihng."

Cathy can’t help but to snicker. "Sure, I’m sure it’s _so_ hard being an heiress. Whatever you say, Perfect Princess Adora."

"I’m _not_ perfect. Whyyy does everyone wahnt me to be??" Adora groans, throwing her arms out to her sides. "They want me to be eloquehnt and they want me to be aspiring. Now thay want me to run for office! I dun’t know politics! I can’t do any of that!"

She lets out another whining noise and drinks from her glass. Cathy gives the bartender an incredulous look. Did he seriously give her more to drink?

He catches her disapproving gaze. _It’s water,_ he lets her know.

Cathy sighs. She doesn’t know how to deal with this. At least this means they don’t have to seriously talk about what happened last night. But that doesn’t mean she’s ready to do it all over again.

"Just… get home safely, ok?" Cathy tells her.

"Nooo, don’t--" Adora begins to protests, with these pleading puppy eyes that catches Cathy off guard. Then, she simply sighs and nods to herself.  "I understand."

Not having anything else to say, Cathy turns and leaves the bar. She doesn’t look back.

Ok, that's that. Everything's fine. Cathy tries to tell herself this, at least. 

She’s made it two blocks down the street when she stops walking, lets out an irritated groan, and kicks a fire hydrant.

 _It’s not her problem_ , she tells herself. Adora is a grown ass woman. She can surely take care of herself.

Wait.

Shit.

She was so distracted by running into Adora again that she forgot about her credit card. Again. Like a fucking idiot.

She slaps her forehead and turns back around.

Maybe, since she’ll happen to be there again, she’ll just call a cab for Adora. She’ll send her on her way, and Adora will get out of Cathy’s life as quickly as possible.

Cathy turns the corner, trying to walk with the confidence of someone who hasn’t returned to fix a carelessly clumsy mistake. She sees Adora outside of the bar now-- but she’s not alone.

 _Aren’t you Adora Grayskull?_ the man in front of Adora is asking. He has his phone in his hand, and he’s recording her.

Adora tries to snatch his phone away, but the man easily moves out of the way. She stumbles, and she leans onto the wall for balance, slumping down it.

He laughs, _Man, this shit is going to go viral._

"Hey, buddy," Cathy hisses, "Get the fuck away from her."

 _Fuck off,_ he says.

Without a second thought, Cathy approaches the man and knees him in between the legs. While he’s reeling from the pain, she seizes his phone and throws it onto the concrete. The screen shatters, and she steps on the phone, mostly for dramatic effect but also to hear the satisfying cracking noise beneath her heel. She's never claimed to fight fairly.

_What the fuck? You’re paying for that phone, you crazy bitch!_

"Like hell I am."

Once the man is no longer doubled over, he throws a punch at her. Cathy expects it, and she easily side-steps out of his path, circling over to his side. She’s not strong; she knows it. But she’s fast, and her quickness has saved her in many a bar fight--

But unfortunately, at the same moment, Adora also goes in for punch as well, and her alcohol-influenced reflexes don’t pull back quickly enough.

Her fist ends up against Cathy’s eye.

The force literally knocks Cathy to the ground, and she swears that she almost passes out from the impact. After recovering from the inital shock, Cathy yells, "What the FUCK, Adora?"

"Shit shit shit shit shit. I’m so sorry."

The man tries coming at Adora from behind while she’s distracted, and Cathy yells at her to _watch out!_

Adora turns around, grabs his shirt with both hands, and harshly slams him against the brick.  It’s terrifying and hot at the same time.

She raises her fist to go in for another punch, but the man starts whimpering like a child with a _please stop_ , and she stops, of course, like the hero she wants to be.

Cathy rolls her eyes. She finally stands up, a hand over her now swollen eye and bloody eyebrow, and she walks over to them.

"Say a word about this, and we will ruin your life. You don’t know who you’re messing with," Cathy threatens him.

A few apologizes and weak promises later, the man takes off. Adora asks Cathy if she thinks he’ll tell anyone, but that’s another problem for another day.

They look at each other, at the destroyed phone, at Cathy’s bruised eye, and they start laughing.

━━━━━━━━━━ ✖ ✖ ✖ ━━━━━━━━━━

Adora, sufficiently sober, presses a disinfectant-soaked cloth onto Cathy’s cut, less bloody but more swollen. Cathy hisses at the sting.

"We’re almost done," Adora promises.

"Great," Cathy grumbles. "So, I take it that’s not your first bar fight."

"You can’t have _all_ of my first times."

Cathy just smirks at her.

Adora finishes prepping the cut and sticks a bandage over it. Cathy has trouble looking her in the eye. Even after screaming at her, Adora is still here, taking care of her. A better friend than Cathy could ever be. She feels like a piece of shit.

She doesn’t apologize often, and she’s afraid she’s forgotten how. But better poorly than not at all, she supposes.

"Sorry. About this morning," Cathy finally says, in a hushed voice.

Adora smiles warmly at her. "It’s ok." 

She reaches for Cathy's hand.

"By the way… I know I never said it before-- I never got the chance to-- but..."

Finally finally finally, after all of these years, Adora says to her, in the sweetest voice Cathy has ever heard--

"I’m sorry for leaving you, Catra."

The words are melodic. They’re magical, even. It’s all Cathy has ever wanted.

"I…" Cathy croaks out. Finally, she has the apology that she’s wanted for years, and she doesn’t know what to say.

She doesn’t even realize that Adora called her by the wrong nickname.

But it feels right.

She likes it better.

C a th y reaches out for Adora‘s hand. She almost asks for Adora to call her by that name again, to hear that name on her lips one more time.

Instead, different words spill out of her mouth, clumsily.

"I love you," Cathy confesses.

She isn’t even sure what love is. She’s never had any healthy examples of it. But she does knows that Adora makes life feel real and gives it meaning and she’s never seen anything more beautiful than her blue eyes or heard anything more lovely than her voice and Adora’s name etched into her bone feels more like an oath always assuring their promises their bond their love will follow through and Cathy knows they can make it work she’s sure they could it’s love and love can conquer anything especially their love above all ----------

Except, Adora doesn’t respond.

Her expression is completely blank.

"Adora?"

Adora still doesn’t speak. Her eyes glaze over.

Ca̵͘thẏ̴ pales. Oh no. She fucked up. She knew she shouldn’t have said anything. It’s too soon. Only a lunatic would confess their love for someone they hadn’t seen since they were a teenager. Fuck fuck fuck fuck.

She laughs nervously, putting a hand on Adora’s shoulder. "I, um… Forget I said anything."

Nothing. Not even a blink.

"Please, you’re seriously fucking scaring me… Adora, say something!" C̴͛̽̏a̴͛̑̅̓͘t̷̲͔̼̉̓̌ h̵͑̌̚ a̴y  pleads, panicking.

Instead, the world pauses.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

"Simulation complete."

The voice booms from above. C̵͆̌̀a̸͝tḩ̵̻̱͒̿̋͆̂͠ rẏ̴ẏ̴ẏ̴ẏ̴ẏ̴ẏ̴a̸a̸aa̸a̸a̸ nearly falls onto the ground. It’s familiar. She’s heard this voice before. She has no idea where it’s coming from.

Is she going crazy? What the fuck is going on?

No. She does know this voice.

It’s Light Hope’s voice.

C̵̜͆̌̀̎̓̾ả̸̹̞̣͇̹͌̂͝t̸̳̖̊̈́̊̊ḩ̵̻̱͒̿̋͆̂͠ra shakes her head. Light Hope? Who’s Light Hope? How does she even know that? She grabs fistfuls of her hair, bends over and cries out. She feels like she’s losing her mind.

Desperately, she looks back up at Adora’s face. Still no reaction.

"Result: Failure. Session is being terminated."

Wait.

No no no no no no.

C̸̎a ̸̛̠̈̿́t ̸̿̚r a̶ feels a sense of dread washing over her when she realizes it:

Nothing is real.

This version of Adora glitches. Her image begins flickering out, distorting like a lagging graphic in a video game. The room that they're in flashes bright red, green, blue, dims like the screen behind it all is being powered down. Her ears are ringing with static.

The world is falling apart.

Catra reaches out her hand, trying to grab onto what’s left of Adora. Her hand falls right through.

"All simulations have been completed."

"Result Summary: 4,964 Failures. 36 Successes."

Suddenly, Catra remembers everything.

She remembers ever simulation, every one of the past 5,000 lives that she lived.

She doesn’t know what these worlds are or how they’re made. They range so wildly. There are worlds with stars, worlds without magic, worlds with greater technology than even the First Ones, worlds without humans, worlds without colors, worlds with even more colors... The list feels endless.

Light Hope created every one of them. She built entire universes just to tear them down. All of it to test Catra and Adora’s relationship. 

Catra doesn’t know how much time has actually passed. But her memories span lifetimes. In her mind, she has lived for hundreds of thousands of years. For an instant, she can remember every moment, every kiss, every holiday, every sunrise, every second in every life spent with Adora. Her consciousness feels stuck in time, if time is real at all. Everything that has happened to her exists in the same moment, and in this instant, she’s floating in the middle of it all.

In almost every alternate universe, it's been her and Adora. They always found each other.

The 4,964 times that Catra and Adora rekindled their relationship, fell in love, stayed together against all odds. Those are all failures to Light Hope.

She wants Adora to let go, to forget about her feelings towards Catra. She thinks that’s the only way to save Etheria. She wants to tear them apart.

Catra can feel her consciousness waking back up. Her vision begins to recognize a blurry image of the temple floor.

"No."

**_"NO."_ **

Catra screams **screams sc̵͑ream̵̟̥̄s̷ s̶c̵͑̂r̸ĕ̸̮ȧ̶m̵̄ś̷̝̥ s̸̢͙̖͝c̸̟͎͐͆r̷͈͛̾é̶̗̯͘a̶͔̟͇̘͋̔̌̋m̸̤̤̅͑̑s̴͕̹̐̇ͅ S̷͖̮̦̺͎͚͋̐̓͛̒̆̚ͅC̸̢̛̘̟̣͖̠̱̮̈́̌̚R̷͉̳̪̜͕̞͎͗̑̆̃̈́͠͠ͅE̶̛͙̜͈̲͉͈̹̥͛̓͋̄̄͘Ą̵̡̡̰̺̽̋͘M̸̰̌̾̏ͅS̷͉̈́̎͒͝** into the void.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The void says nothing back.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

━━━━━━━━━━ ✖ ✖ ✖ ━━━━━━━━━━

Catra blinks into consciousness.

She sit up on the temple floor, and she groans and rubs the back of her head. Jeez, talk about a headache.

Did she accidentally bang her head on something in here? How long has it been since she’s been knocked out? What time is it?

Her mind feels muddled and has no way of knowing the time of day in this prison-like, window-less hunk of metal, so she gets herself up and retraces her steps, back to the start of the temple.

When Catra exits the tower, she sees that Scorpia is still there. The arachnoid princess lets out a cry of relief when she sees her.

"Catra! Are you ok? Are you hurt?" Scorpia bombards her. She scurries over to the feline, lifting her up and squeezing tightly. "I’m so glad you’re safe!"

Catra lets out an irritated goan, trying to wiggle out of Scorpia’s tight hug. "Could you stop freaking out for a minute?"

Scorpia doesn’t relent, so at some point, Catra sighs and gives up, succumbing to the embrace.

"How long was I gone?" she asks.

"Maybe… fifteen minutes?" Scorpia replies uncertainly. "But you told me you would be done in five! Those extra ten minutes felt like agony!"

"Yeah, tell me about it…" Catra says, but she isn’t sure why. "I didn't find what I was looking for. Let's just get out of here."

Scorpia agrees, and they start to walk away. After a few steps, Catra looks back at the temple, frowning.

She still feels like she’s forgotten something.

**Author's Note:**

> inspired by that one black mirror episode and that time I took too much lsd
> 
> thanks for reading! check out my [tumblr](https://brightmoonprincess.tumblr.com) if you’d like, and I take requests there as well


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